Ice Crystals
by drunk-on-disappointment
Summary: It had all started from the accident. I could feel it, the itch, the burn. I could feel them crawling, taking over my mind and body. I tried to control it, but I couldn't stop them. I couldn't stop myself. Little bit of Elsanna, parasitic aliens, gore, language (rated M for these, sorry to disappoint some of you)


**Sorry I haven't updated in a few days. It's been pretty hectic but the good news is that my AP testing is over! Woooo! And I found out I only have one final for my Gothic Literature class! **

**So, in celebration of that, I decided to try something a little different to get back into the flow of writing so I can start on_ In Death's Hands _and _Beware Her Frozen Heart. _This piece was inspired by Stephen King and his story _I Am The Doorway. _I'm feeling kinda eh about this story but I feel like this fandom needs more ****sci-fi/horror stuff, so hopefully I can inspire better writers to start that. Anyway, hope some of you enjoy!**

* * *

When I was a little kid, I always thought I would grow up to be either an astronaut or the queen of the world. Young minds always have big dreams, out-of-this-world fantasies, so at age eight, I though being queen was plausible in every single way.

Anna still makes fun of me for that. Even Kristoff and Hans won't let me forget it. I regret ever telling them, although I think it spilled out in a drunken stupor one night during one of out big let's-see-how-many-beers-you-can-chug-in-one-minute parties.

But deep down, I think I knew what I would become. I would always look through my father's telescope, pointing out of the window in our massive library, and I would try to count the stars. I would swirl random patterns in the sky with my hands. As I grew older, I used to climb out of my window and sit on my roof.

I took Anna up there when we had first started dating. We would sit up there for hours and I would babble on about constellations and planets and the universe and how I was always so curious. She would just laugh and kiss my nose, sometimes my lips, and poke me in the ribs when I pouted whenever she started to lose interest in my words.

Some days, I think she might have been my reason for loving the night sky and the stars because her freckles dotted her skin like the stars dotted the night sky, but then I remember I had loved space and the stars and the planets since I was a little child, and I think that was one of the reasons why I fell in love with her.

That and her hair. I'm a sucker for red hair and braids. Her bubbly attitude also helped significantly, but I admit, it can get a little annoying at times.

I would still look out to the sky like a long lost friend and feel a pang of longing in my chest when I remembered it was so far away. This is the reason why I could never get tired traveling into the dark infinity of the universe. I always felt so insignificant whenever I was surrounded by it; it reminded me that something was bigger than me, that there is always something bigger than me.

I had made many trips before, to various places, for various things. Mostly to collect samples and to take pictures of the same rocks that seemed to look so different every time I went up there.

This is why I never thought anything could go wrong. This is why I never thought I could grow to hate the space and it's infinite dimensions.

It started when I got back from my mission, or my nightmare as I often remember it in my dreams. Everything had been fine, excellent even. I had been in one of the small bunks in our pod. Kristoff had been eating some of the dry "food" they give us out of the bag and Hans had been fiddling with a random trinket that beeped occasionally.

I was looking over data, as I always did on these missions. All three of us would always travel together and while it was _all _of our jobs to analyze the evidence, I would get stuck with most of the work.

I didn't mind though. I knew the boys would figure out some way to mess things up. And I had my own system that needed to be handled delicately.

Hans was the first one to notice it, as Kristoff was digging the rest of his food from the bottom recesses of the bag and I was carefully examining a sample of rock we had gotten off of the surface a few days before.

In all of my trips to Venus, I had never seen anything like that (and I have been on multiple trips). I could see it out of the small window behind me, growing and climbing its way through the air, trying to grab onto anything to pull it closer towards our setup. The yellow fog curled over the rocks and poured into the crevices of the gray crust.

"What the hell is that?" Hans whispered in a low, disbelieving voice.

"I don't know, but its freakin' me out," Kristoff responded, food now forgotten.

"Lets check it out." Hans's eyes twinkled. I found myself shaking my head and I jumped down from my bunk next to Kristoff (because the space was so terribly cramped).

"I don't think that's a good idea. We don't know what's in there and I really don't want to find out," I said. Kristoff nodded in agreement.

Hans sneered at the two of us, light-hearted attitude vanishing quickly. "There's nothing to be concerned about, just some stupid fog. And don't start going on about the climate of Venus or any of that fucking shit, Elsa," he added when I opened my mouth. I quickly shut it.

I put on my best neutral face, but I could feel my eye twitching and a headache start to form behind my eyes. I never liked Hans much. He was much too pretentious. I also couldn't stand how Anna had talked with him when they had first met – like they were best friends. Anna, however, quickly figured out how much of a dick he was when he started to get drunk and rant about how "icy" I was.

Not like I cared, but Anna did. I enjoyed watching him get socked in the face.

I wished I could do that then, but I managed to keep my emotions intact. "Hans, I don't think it would be very intelligent to go out there in whatever that is." I nodded towards the window.

The fog had crawled closer to us by then, much too close to my liking. Hans shook his head, chuckling a bit. "I always knew Kristoff was a wimp, since he still sleeps with a stuffed reindeer and all, but I though you, Elsa, would want to discover what the fog is."

Kristoff clenched his fists besides me and I knew that in order to get Hans to shut his mouth, we would have to agree.

"Fine." Hans smiled smugly. In the end, Kristoff stayed inside to monitor everything while Hans and I shrugged on our suits and clasped our helmets onto our heads. I was glad to see his sideburns disappear behind the helmet.

We had stepped out onto the ground, and suddenly the whole I-love-space thing seemed to be distorted in my mind. The fog was still moving slowly and with our pace, we met it rather quickly.

Hans reached out a gloved hand, only hesitating slightly, before shoving it into the yellow mist. When nothing happened, I stepped forward, mostly into it, and took a closer look. It lapped at my suit and surrounded the two of us. It seemed to move much quicker when you were a part of it.

What happened after that is mostly a blur, but _something _moved within the fog, huge and grotesque and horrible.

It had reached for Hans's arm and gripped it tight with massive hands and had torn it off while biting into his suit-covered shoulder and neck, blood spurted on the inside and outside of his helmet.

I remember running and tearing flesh and blood and I don't know how I managed to get back into the pod but apparently I did, because when I woke up, I was lying within white sheets with a steady beep to my right.

And I remember a mess of red, frizzy hair in my face and in my mouth and warm arms wound around me so tightly I thought my lungs would burst.

Anna had quickly pulled away with tears and a smile.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just couldn't help it and I hope I didn't hurt your side but the doctors didn't know when you would wake up or it you would wake up at all and I just thought that you would leave me." Tears were steaming down her face then and I wiped them away, a tired smile gracing my lips.

* * *

I left the hospital a few days later. Anna had stayed by my side the entire time. Apparently, Kirstoff had taken me back as quickly as possible. He said he tried to stop the bleeding as much as he could but the journey back took four days at most, and by the time we were landed, I was whiter than my hair with blood covering the right side of my body, the cabin where our bunks were, and Kristoff.

I still don't know why I didn't die then and there. In the beginning, I used to think it was my will to live, my will to stay alive for Anna and Kristoff and my parents and for space and myself.

I was so, so wrong.

* * *

I had started to notice the itch a few days after I was released from the hospital. I had been put on strict bed-rest (although I had broken it a few times because I was constantly starving, which was weird for me since Anna was always the one who ate like she has never seen food in her life, and because I was so incredibly bored.)

Anna was there for the first few days to keep me entertained, but she eventually had to go back to work, as her sick days at her school were gone and Rapunzel was getting awfully lonely teaching art to high-school students without her best friend.

The fist day I was alone was when I had felt it, right under my thick bandages. The doctors had told me not to take them off, that it might possibly get infected, but after a few hours of intense itching, I couldn't stand it. Pacing the room hadn't helped either and had made my side hurt worst, so I felt like in order to prevent further harm to myself, I might as well try to stop the itching.

I lifted my shirt, slowly to not aggravate my wounds, and had slowly peeled off the tape around the outer edges of the bandage.

The sloppy stitches that Kristoff had given me when I was first attacked were replaced with neat, organized stitches, closing three long straight gashes in my side, going from the top of my right side (right under the armpit) to the bottom of my right hip, slightly onto my stomach.

The edges of the lines were red and a little inflames but I, having no knowledge of medical maladies, thought that it was only slightly odd, so it didn't concern me greatly.

Except for that itch.

The doctors had told me that it would itch and I remember when Anna had gotten a bad cut on her arm from falling out of a tree and how much she whined about it itching as it was healing. I didn't think it would be this bad.

I convinced myself that it was healing.

I just replaced the slightly bloody bandages with a fresh one and tugged my shirt over it. When Anna came home, I was sitting on the sofa with a book on my lap. I didn't tell her anything. I concealed it because I didn't want her to worry.

But I mulled over the idea of telling Kristoff about it. He had been there. He had seen _something _surely. We hadn't talked about it since we got back. I didn't want to though, as it filled my dreams like the yellow fog had filled the creases of the rock, and I wanted to forget.

* * *

Hans's funeral was a few days after that, and I stood besides Kristoff with Anna on my arm. It had itched terribly then too, perhaps more than before, and I remember Anna telling me how cold my arm was, how cool my skin felt.

I just shrugged and said nothing. My throat had started to hurt.

It was about a week after the funeral that the itch turned into something more. It was more of a burning sensation, like when you put salt in your hand and then put an ice cube on top.

My stitched were out by then, but the vivid red lines were so noticeable on my pale skin, which was why I was able to see a change. I was standing in my bathroom, the TV sounding behind the closed door as some game show came on. Cold water dripped from my hair and down my body, all the way down to my burning side.

I used to take hot showers, _scalding_ showers even, but everyday I seemed to be turning the temperature down a little more, until I had it all the way to the right and it couldn't be any colder. Despite this, the burning had started, slowly at first.

At breakfast it had begun to tingle and it had slowly progressed to what it was in the bathroom, where the coldest of waters seemed to not even put a dent in the pain. Softly, I brushed my cold fingers over the three lines.

The skin was slightly bumpy and cold, colder than the surrounding skin, and I gasped. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why something so cold felt like it was on fire. The area around the long gashes was paler than the rest too, almost an icy gray color.

Anna had knocked on the door then. "Elsa? Are you okay?"

I nodded but then realized that she couldn't see me. When I spoke, my voice was cracked and my throat felt raw. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You've been in there for a while."

I gritted my teeth. Anger flashed through my chest suddenly and I had no idea why it was there. Anna had never made me mad before, only slightly annoyed. Nothing big. In fact, I had always found her caring and thoughtful qualities to be endearing. But now, I saw them in a different light, in a light that caused the image to be altered into something just as grotesque as that thing from the fog.

I bit my tongue. "I told you I'm fine Anna." I tried to hide the hatred from my voice but I knew from her silence that I didn't do a good job.

"Oh, okay. Sorry." She padded away and suddenly the hatred and anger were gone and the burning had increased. I slipped a shirt on and made my way to her slumped position on the couch.

"I'm sorry, Anna," I said as I stroked her hair. I didn't know why I was on an emotional roller coaster. "You just worry too much about me."

She hugged me and I reciprocated the gesture. She sniffed.

"I always worry about you." I just kissed her hair and held her close that night.

That was the last night I was able to do that.

* * *

After, the burning had spread and suddenly I couldn't be in the same room as her. I was still on medical leave so she was gone most of the day, which gave me free reign of our house during those hours. I kept the shades down and the lights off.

When she would come home, I would lock myself in our room. The first few nights she had shouted, pounded the door, kicked it, threatened to call my parents. She had even called Kristoff to try and get him over here but he didn't answer. He didn't even answer me.

Eventually, she had stopped trying, and sometimes I could hear her slid down to the floor outside of the door. She once commented how cold the wood was.

She never knew how cold it was inside the room. Or how cold I was becoming.

The skin on my entire right side was bumpy and that icy gray color, yet the middle was turning into a pale blue color. I found that this didn't faze me as much as it should.

What did faze me though was the tingling all over my body, just like how the burn had started, but this was much stronger. It almost vibrated my skin, my bones. It was the strongest in my fingertips, which I found would glow a faint blue at night, just like my eyes in the dark.

I could feel something in me, festering, and I tried to control it. It was slowly starting to slip out. Frost would gather beneath my touch whenever my fingers made contact with any surface. Thin ice would collect underneath me. Spikes would shoot up at my sides as I sat curled up in the corner of my dark room.

I was glad Anna was sleeping on the couch.

Everything had started to become distorted. Anna's voice, and even my own, would sound like they were underwater and I found myself detesting the sound. That was why I had stopped talking, which was why Anna would always walk away from my door slowly each time.

Also, my throat was horribly sore. The burn had started to crawl its way up, almost scratching as it made its way towards its escape.

My eyes had started to go, slowly a while ago, but with more strength and vigor as time went on. I could only see in the dark now.

I hadn't eaten anything in a while, a drastic change from my first week home. I had tried a few days ago, but they had crawled underneath my skin, biting at my stomach. I watched them with faint amusement and horror as little bugs maneuvered their way underneath my skin; little bumps that tickled as they went.

* * *

The day I lost control was the day my side was completely covered in icy crystals.

I had lost track of time by then. The darkness was all I knew so I didn't know what was day and night. I was on the sofa. They didn't want me to leave my room but I couldn't stand it in there anymore. The bed was stiff from the ice.

I didn't think Anna would come home. Not this early. Deep down, I hoped she would never come back at all. But she was never the type of person to abandon anyone, even someone who locked herself in her room and hasn't spoken a word to her in weeks.

She came home when the sun was setting, later than usual, but I wouldn't know since the blinds were shut. Her steps were soft, tentative, because I don't think she's seen me in weeks. I haven't even seen myself.

They watched her through my eyes and I could feel the burning in my side. I could see the faint blue light on my fingertips. I could feel them crawling underneath my skin and up the back of my neck.

"Elsa?" Her voice was small and they screamed in my head at the sound. I didn't move. I could feel their hatred towards her, that human, that _creature_ in their mind. I didn't want to move, for fear that I would lose whatever control I had left over them if I did.

Anna took a step towards me. I didn't turn my head. "You should stop there." My voice was rough and hoarse. I could feel then scratching at my side.

"Elsa. Please tell me what's happening," she begged. "I haven't seen you in forever and suddenly your just here?"

I could hear her hurt and anger and I could feel their rage. The sun was set by now and they could see much clearer.

I felt like I was floating, like my mind was separate from my body. My control started to slip more and more as Anna screamed and paced the room and I felt myself move without my command. They crawled up my sides and my back and arms and legs and I could feel the burn _everywhere. _

I watched in horror from their demented perspective as shards of ice erupted from the floor, windows shattering as icy wind beat against that glass. Anna screamed as ice cut her arms and legs and hung her from sharp spikes in the air as blood dripped out of the gaping holes in her stomach and chest.

I would've _cried._ I should've cried. For Hans, for Anna, for Kristoff, for myself.

But I cried for them.

Because I felt their fear as they crawled through my body. Cold air whipped around me. They seemed weaker after that outbreak and I seized my chance.

My body burned as I walked into the bedroom, still covered in ice.

My father had given me a gun when I had first moved out and it had never before moved from the drawer besides my bed.

I laughed faintly as I moved it towards my mouth.

They crawled and screamed and my side itched and burned. My fingertips glowed blue as I pulled the trigger.

I was so used to the dark I never noticed the difference.

* * *

**(If you have gotten this far, fantastic and thank you but feel free to ignore this)**

**As I said before, I'm gonna try and write some more for my other stories, but I have a giant french project that I had to do AND I have been trying to plan out the stories chapter by chapter so I can get a good grip on the writing and tone I want to take. **

**I've gone back and changed a few things that I had planned for_ In Death's Hands _so the ending will be a little different but the chapters already posted are still the same. Hopefully, I can plan everything out and at the latest get a new chapter out by the beginning of next week, maybe for both stories.**


End file.
